


world-wise, world-weary and not his mother's favorite

by lunaverenas



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Depression, Kunimi Akira-centric, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaverenas/pseuds/lunaverenas
Summary: Maybe he lost something. Maybe he lost something a long time ago.Or: Kunimi Akira changes himself to fit the mold that his family has set out for him and is taught a lesson by athleticism.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Kunimi Akira
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	world-wise, world-weary and not his mother's favorite

**Author's Note:**

> this has been on my files since august 29 and i have stared at it with criticism in my eyes since then. it has finally won the will you be posted battle.
> 
> i think that other than depression (that is tagged), and the type of relationship that kunimi has with himself and his family (that i preferred to hint at in the summary, because i had no idea of how to tag or write an warning for it) there are no warnings to give. feel free to tell me if you see something that you think deserves a warning, though!

There are many kinds of athletes in this world.

His younger sister joined the track and field team of her middle school less than a month ago. His older brother used to be a catcher for his high school’s baseball team. Akira, himself, used to play volleyball back in his teenage years.

Each kind is different, with their own philosophy.

There are the ones who believe in putting effort into the sport they play above all else, and the ones who will cheat to win. He has seen some downplay their injuries because of the despair to keep out there, and some who transformed that despair into salvation.

Akira was never any of these — though he liked it, he just never felt the same type of connection to volleyball that his teammates did.

He memorized what his mother had said to convince his father to let him join the team. _It’ll give him somewhere to put his energy, and it’s a good opportunity for him to learn how to deal with other people._

It was effective. It left no room for wondering if he could become as passionate as Oikawa-san and Iwaizumi-san were, too.

He liked it, sure, but real life caught up to him and he had to work in his father's company, in a real job with a promising future.

He liked it, sure, but his demons kept following him, hiding in every corner they saw, and he was being driven insane by it.

Akira likes to stay comfortable.

He has always liked the comfort of the knowledge that he had a stable job at a stable company. Something that won’t disappear if he gets injured, a dream that won’t come crumbling down overnight. Why put so much effort in something that will not go beyond high school, or middle school? It just didn’t make sense to him.

During his time at Kitagawa Daiichi, from his first year to his third, he kept thinking to himself ‘Why do I have to practice? I’m tired. Why do you want me to stay? Why do you want to stay?’.

Yet, every friend of his seemed to know the answer to that question.

Oikawa-san injured his ankle and his knee, at different times of his life, but he continued to play, from Miyagi to Argentina. Iwaizumi-san barely had free time, these days, but he continued to play whenever he could. Kindaichi was a social worker, but even he had joined a neighborhood association team. He, like them, continued to play.

It didn’t make any sense.

Then...

It did.

He never understood why he should be faster and stronger against a team that would obviously lose, at Kitaiichi — then, he understood how much it hurt to be a member of the team who lost, how much it hurt to lose to an opponent you had underestimated.

He understood what it felt like, when you put all of your effort into something, and still lost, because volleyball is not just about the effort that you put in it, not about _you,_ but about all of the six people who are on the court together with you.

It was so obvious, but it was a lesson he needed to learn, about how what he did would connect to the next movement and had been connected to the last. That he was not the issue, or at least not the only one.

He was thankful for the sympathetic atmosphere that the Seijoh team had, unlike the oppressive and intimidating aura that belonged to Kitaiichi even before he came to middle school but worsened year by year.

And yet, Akira continued to feel like the loser, in spite of the fact he hasn’t played in years. 

He hid it well, but he felt like he was weak, like he was left behind.

Kageyama approached him on a rainy night, for the first time.

He had grown, not only in height, and so had Akira, but that was not his focus, back then.

He walked away before he could get too close.

Kageyama approached him on a day in the middle of the summer, for the second time.

He had grown.

Akira still felt like he was weak. Like he was a loser.

Maybe he lost something. Maybe he lost something a long time ago.

They continued to have their accidental little meetings with each other, in grocery stores and libraries, all of them limited to one out of tree: mutual avoidance, in the beginning, and then it was Akira glancing his way (hoping he didn’t try to talk to him), and then it was Akira glancing his way (telling himself that next time he’d say something like ‘hello, how you’ve been? See you around’ and leave it at that).

Then, Kageyama suddenly disappeared from the streets of Miyagi again.

Was he even real?

Akira was so tired, these days. His teenage self had a lot more energy compared to the man he was now.

Maybe he had just thought of him in a moment of weakness. Came up with what could’ve been, and he was so exhausted that he believed his own imagination to be the world he lived in.

But he was able to notice the color of the sky again, think of it as a light blue rather than a dull gray, after these meetings that might not have happened, and he learned how to hear the sound of the river in the singing of the morning birds that nested in the trees of the Kunimi countryside house.

It was a gradual change.

It began with him writing down the start of a song, left unfinished, but with three and a half sentences in it.

The pile of plates and bowls in the sink diminished, though they were still there.

He cried when he watched an animated film that was made for children while he babysat his nephew.

The sensation he had, of watching his own life from afar, left him, though it came back every once in a while.

He went after Kageyama.

Kageyama's eyes were clear, and his stare was intense like it was when he was focused on something, usually volleyball, as he looked back at him.

They seemed to read each other well, now.

They saw the regret, and they saw the nostalgia, and they saw all of it.

And yet, they didn’t walk away. Not this time.

Akira hated it, but he was the only person who could see the depth of the regret that resided within his soul.

Kageyama never said a word, but he knew well enough who had given him the infamous nickname that he later learned to deal with.

Kageyama never said a word, but he knew well enough who helped to pressure Kindaichi until he felt like he needed to choose between his friend or the team.

He knew it. And yet, he didn’t walk away.

In the end, it wasn’t him who had left.

"Kageyama," Akira had said, with a tired and rough voice. “Hey.”

Akira saw the reflection that he had in those dark blue eyes.

It was the reflection of an equal, and not of a subject.

A member of the royalty, or maybe, a former prince of a fallen kingdom.

What mattered was that they were the same, and in that short silent moment they understood each other more than anyone else could.

"Do you… Do you want to have dinner with me? I’ll pay."

“I,” he had said. Tobio continued to look at him, and Akira could feel the weight of his stare even as he looked away, bringing his hand up to his neck, scratching it, a sudden warmth on his cheeks. “thought we could catch up with each other. Yuu and I watch your games, sometimes, but that’s… Different.”

After another few seconds of silence had gone by, his eyes moved back to Tobio’s face.

_This has no use._

_Why am I saying this? It’s not like he’ll agree._

_Congratulations, Akira. You really had to go and embarrass yourself in front of him, didn’t you?_

Tobio’s mouth was wobbling, as it used to do when he got excited about something, and his cheeks were a bright shade of pink.

“Eh?”

He nodded.

Akira thought of asking him, _Aren’t you understanding this in a bad way?_

Things would be simpler, then.

He could be in the comfort of not taking the risk of, at some point of the way, getting hurt.

He would just go back home after a long day of work, and the only interesting thing he would have to tell his mother would be ‘I met someone I knew in middle school today. He was in the local gymnasium. Why I was there? I’m not sure, my body walked to that place, and when I noticed I was already inside’.

_But that’s not how I mean it, is it?_

_I won’t be alright with leaving, this time. I’ve had enough of what ifs._

“Where do you want to go?”

Kageyama’s eyes wander around the court, like he’s asking if they can’t stay here.

“Somewhere,” he replies, his voice soft but not hesitant. “with good food?”

Akira wonders if he also would like to say _somewhere I can fit in._ Though, no. Kageyama is looking at him in the same way he did when Akira approached him. As an equal.

It’s not him who worries about this type of thing.

Akira has a suit on, indistinguishable from his colleagues, while Kageyama is wearing a tracksuit, standing out in his own way.

Neither he nor Akira fit in here, right now. Their feet led them to the court without them meaning to enter it.

In the end, Kageyama guides him to a small restaurant that the Karasuno volleyball coach used to take their team to, when they lost and when they won. Akira follows, and he is tempted to send a picture of the smile that appears as Kageyama — the real deal, now, though he can’t be sure whether or not his memories of meeting him were real — talks about what his current team has been up to, off the country, and what he’s doing here, prompted by a question Akira asked, to Kindaichi.

With the two of them inside of the restaurant, the out-of-tune theme song that had followed him for all of his life had gotten in tune a little bit more.

And as Akira, The Coward continued to force himself to look directly in his eyes, while they drank (water, because both of them got tipsy easily and neither of them wanted to see double while they went back home) and ate, the song had gotten less and less bizarre.

The Coward continued to force himself to look until it was natural for his body to do so, until his eyes would search for Kageyama before his mind could think of it.

The Coward continued to force himself to look until the song was a soft melody, being played over rainy days and summer nights, over watching Kageyama fly for a jump serve and admiring how red his lips looked after Akira had so hungrily kissed and bitten them.

Akira was a loser, yes.

A coward, too.

There was no use in denying something that was so obvious.

He had a hard time putting effort into some things, and it was not always because he was not interested in them. He let his father guide his way, never telling him or his mother what he wanted to do with his own life to their face, and he walked away from the history degree he wanted to pursue without a second look to it in order to follow the natural path that the men of his family took, in between _business administration_ and _accounting_.

There were many opportunities that he had lost in his life, because of that cowardice, because of all of the times he walked away from things.

Without them, though, he’s not sure that he would know how to appreciate the things that he had managed to keep.

The path to victory is not built by a lack of losses, he has learned from the athletes that he has known in his life, but by having the strength to stand up again even after a great fall. The strength to build a kingdom, piece by piece, even after someone stole your crown from you.

It was something quite paradoxical, this necessity of one’s opposite for one’s existence, and yet…

 _Victors_ do not exist without _losers._

But neither does victory.

A victor might have been born as one. He might never become that. He might keep living like a loser until he grows old.

But victory is something that you have to struggle for, even if you’re born a victor. So there is always the possibility, the hope to achieve it.

You don’t have to be a victor to be capable of winning.

Hasn’t he lost so many things, back when he thought he was on top of the world?

Practice matches against other schools, every game against Shiratorizawa at Kitaiichi and Seijoh alike, insignificant objects as well as ones who meant something, people — who left him, in more than one sense. His sense of self was changing, but he still thought he was a victor, and yet he lost.

It was not impossible for the opposite to be true, too.

And he has seen Kageyama in person enough times to know that you do not have to have wings to fly — the lack of something does not imply _impossibility,_ but _struggle,_

Tomorrow, he will hope again.

**Author's Note:**

> i swear that i do not think that kunimi akira is a coward, a loser or rich (even though he is all three - as far as he cares - here) in canon. i do, however, have a headcanon that post-canon kindaichi is a social worker.
> 
> having said that, i didn't think i'd make another thing about kunimi's cowardice or what victory is but here i am making another thing about kunimi's cowardice AND what victory is.
> 
> the title is a quote from 'you are jeff' (yes. again.), a poem by richard siken.


End file.
